Cricut Cardz Challenge #19

It's Wednesday and it's time for another challenge at Cricut Cardz Challenge. This week anything goes. I made a set of alphabet flash cards for my three year old granddaughter, Payton. I've placed them in a recycled mint tin from Trader Joe's. I cut 3" circles from the Plantin' Schoolbook cartridge and my letters for the top of the tin were cut from Plantin' Schoolbook at 3/4".

The capital letters are cut at 1 1/2" and the lower case letters are cut at 1/2". I doodled around the edges of each card on the letter side with Sakura 3-D Glaze Pens.

I used a lot of different cartridges to cut the images for the cards. Most of the animals came from the Animal Kingdom cartridge. I also used Doodlecharms, Walk In My Garden, New Arrival, Paisley, Pagoda, Mickey and Friends, Going Places, Paper Doll Dress Up, Joys of the Season and Life's A Beach.

BBTB2 Paisley Purse, a Blog Hop and Candy

I can't believe the end of the month has quickly arrived again, so it's time for our monthly blog hop at BBTB2. You should have arrived here from the super talented Krista's blog. If not you will want to go back to the BBTB2 site and start from the beginning. Our newest design team member, Lori, chose our cut for this week's challenge. She gave us our choice of purse cuts from the Paisley cartridge. I chose Purse #2 on page 54. As soon as I found out the challenge I knew exactly what I was going to make. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes I agonize for days trying to make a decision. I knew I was going to use my Gypsy to make a shaped card and I knew I was going to make a large purse using my new K&Company 12 x 24" paper pad. There are some really colorful prints in this pad of paper and I just love it. I chose this print with a brown background and grey, red, and gold flowers. I used brown kraft cardstock for my handle and gold textured cardstock for my upper purse layer. The dimensions for my purse are 10.13 width and 17.08 height.

I used the words feature on the cartridge for shop til you drop. I cut the words from gold textured cardstock at 6 inches.

I made this little pocket to hold a gift card. I embellished the inside of the card with flowers cut from the dp. I added a big jute bow and red button to the handle of the purse for a little extra texture and dimension. I love being able to use my Gypsy to create a shaped card. Making a large shape using the 12 x 24" mat is a fun way to make a cute presentation for a gift card. It's something a little different from the usual box or envelope. Now you will be heading over to Marina's blog and wait 'til you see what she has created. Please make sure you leave a comment and become a follower of my blog (if you aren't already) to be in the drawing for my Spring blog candy. I've gathered an assortment of beautiful Spring colored embellishments---flowers, ribbons, pearls and a cute new Studio G stamp.

Spring Challenges

There are so many Spring challenges this week I just couldn't resist making a pot of flowers for all of them. This project/card is for the following challenges:

• A Spoon Full of Sugar-Bookmark
• Allsorts-Spring
• Crafty Cardmakers-Spring
• Crazy 4 Challenges-Spring
• Paper Cutz-1 Ribbon, 3 Buttons
• Project Tuesday-Flowerpot card
• Saturday Challenge-Spring

This flowerpot card is the challenge at Project Tuesday this week. You will find the link for the directions to make the card on their blog. I saw a perfect opportunity to incorporate my design into a bookmark for the challenge at A Spoon Full of Sugar since the card pulls out of the flowerpot. I cut my flowers for this project using my Cricut and the Pagoda and Sweet Treats cartridges. My DP is from DCWV Spring stack. I used a Cuttlebug flower edge embossing folder for the top of the flowerpot and a Fiskars scalloped edge punch for my decorative edge. I embellished the pot with jute ribbon and used three buttons for the centers of the flowers.

I used the internet to hunt up a quote that I could use for the bookmark. I think I used quotes, book and garden as the words for my search criteria. My sentiment on the tag comes from the Beautiful Blooms set at The Cutting Cafe.

You can see from this picture what the bookmark looks like when marking a page in a book.

Cricut Card Challenge #18

Happy Wednesday (hump day). Time for this week's new challenge at Cricut Cardz Challenge. Mary's choice for this week was an Easter card using any cartridge and colors. I had to use Cricut's seasonal Easter cartridge because it has the cutest little animals on it. I chose the adorable lamb. I cut him at 1 1/2" from white cardstock and layered with a flesh color and black for the nose. I decided to make a little bit different than normal card this week choosing a tent card with a spinner feature (the lamb face). This is a really easy card to make. I used a piece of 12 x 12" white cardstock and cut a four inch width off of it. Then turning the paper horizontally I scored at 5, 6, and 7 inches. You can see how I folded the scored lines in the photo below.

I used a piece of cute jelly bean paper made by Creative Imaginations. I chose this paper to go with the cute saying on my circular digital stamp from Whimsie Doodles that says "I never met a jelly bean I didn't like." I cut two pieces of the dp at 4 x 5" and attached one for the front of the card and one to the inside of the card. Then I placed the card on my Cricut mat to cut the hole out. I placed my lamb in the center of the hole hanging from a piece of ribbon. Then I closed up the top of the card with adhesive. My Happy Easter sentiment is from The Cutting Cafe.

Mojo Monday/Color Chef/Paperplay

I was excited to see Mojo Monday's sketch this week was for a long card. I love making long/tall cards. I don't know why they appeal to me so much, but I do enjoy making them. Paper Play Challenges is looking for a thank you card this week. Kelly Jo's Stamp Pad Color Chef challenge this week calls for the colors of bright pink, turquoise, black and white, so here is my take on the three challenges combined. My DP is Heidi Grace. My images are from The Cutting Cafe as well as my sentiment. I used my Nesties to cut the tags for the sentiment.

BBTB2 Sweet Treats Cake #2

Happy Monday and Welcome Spring. It's official, we are now in the season of Spring. How great is that? It makes me feel better just knowing that winter is officially over. Monday means it's a new challenge at BBTB2. This week our hostess Susan challenged us to use the cake #2 cut from the Sweet Treats cartridge. She chose this cut in honor of her 50th birthday. Happy Birthday, Susan and many more. My card is 5 x 6 1/2" from white cardstock. I added a piece of pink to the front of the card and topped it with a doily. It's hard to see in the picture but I used the Copic Air Brush System on the doily using pink and lavender markers. I used Creative Imaginations Renae Lindgren DP for my cake. The pattern of the paper looked like decorations on a cake to me. I cut my cake at 3 1/2". I cut my layers from white cardstock then sprinkled them with MS fine crystal glitter.

My cakestand also came from the Sweet Treats cartridge. I wanted it to resemble glass so after cutting it from purple cardstock and adding the layers that I cut from white cardstock I applied Inkssentials Glossy accents clear dimensional embellishment liquid to it. I added some ribbon that says celebrate and a glossy resin rose to the center. My circle sentiment is from The Cutting Cafe.

Charisma,Fantabulous Cricut,PapertakeWeekly,PileItOn

The Challenges--

• Charisma (http://www.charismacardz.blogspot.com/ )-Something for the kiddies
• Fantabulous Cricut (http://fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/) - Balloon & Birthday
• Papertake Weekly (http://papertakeweekly.blogspot.com/ ) -Lilac & Lemon
• Pile It On (http://pileitonchallenge.blogspot.com/ )-Pastel colors

I have four daughters with birthdays in April so I decided I needed to get busy making their birthday cards. Here is the first I made for the above challenges. While checking the entries for cards on the Cricut Cardz Challenge (of which I am on the Design Team) I came across a card that mentioned the brand new Cricut challenge site Fantabulous Cricut. I hadn't heard about it, probably because I don't spend much time on the message boards at the Cricut website. How could I pass that up, it's what I'm all about. For their first challenge they asked for a card incorporating two things, balloons and the word birthday. My balloons came from the Celebration cartridge and they're cut at 1 1/4" from a yellow print paper that has been in my stash forever but I don't know where it came from. The same goes for the purple print that I used for my package which I cut from the Sweet Treats cartridge at 2 1/2". My circle sentiment came from The Cutting Cafe. This week's Papertake challenge wanted a card using the colors of lilac and lemon and since they are pastels this card also works for the Pile It On challenge. Last but not least Charisma cards is looking for something for the kiddies. I used some yellow and lavender Stickles for a little sparkle and shine.

Cricut Cardz Challenge #17

It's Wednesday and that means it's time for a new Cricut Cardz Challenge. This week's challenge is to make a child's birthday card using any cartridge and colors. I chose to make a shaped card this week. I used the truck from Mickey and Friends on page 125 of the manual. You may think that I made this card using Design Studio or my Gypsy, but I didn't. I wanted everyone to know that even if you don't have these two wonderful additions to your Cricut machine you can still make a shaped card by doing it the old fashioned way. Yes it might take a few minutes more, but the results are the same. The first thing I did was cut a pattern for my card by cutting the truck at 4 3/4" from a piece of inexpensive white cardstock (Georgia Pacific from Walmart). Then I took a piece of blue cardstock (8 1/2" x 11") and folded it in half using my bone folder on the crease. Then I placed the top of the truck at the fold, traced around it and cut it out. Simple as that you have a shaped card without the expense of DS or Gypsy. Then I cut the layering pieces for the truck at 4 1/2". First I cut the truck from the blue and green check then using my shift key I cut the dump part of the truck from blue cardstock and again from black for the tires. I ran the blue cardstock through my Cuttlebug using the Spots and Dots embossing folder. Then I assembled all the pieces. My sentiment came from The Cutting Cafe.

It's from the All Occasion Circle word set. Finally for embellishment I added a some MS ribbon and a blue button.

BBTB2 Stretch Your Imagination/ Technique Tuesday

It was very exciting to get to use a Technique Tuesday stamp on our cards this week. I have never used one of their stamps before, but goodness, I really liked it. They stamped up very clear and detailed. Of course, who could resist this adorable deer. This is a set of stamps that includes flowers, mushrooms, grass, butterflies and several words to put together sentiments. I put the words To My Deer Friend on my flourish, which was the required Cricut cut element for this card. It came from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. My dp is from SEI. I used kraft cardstock for my base card which is 6 x 6 inches.

I stamped the cute little deer onto Cryogen cardstock using dark brown ink then colored him with my Copics. For the butterfly I stamped three times so I could layer it also coloring it with Copics. I did a lot of doodling with my Sakura 3-D glaze pens. I added some buttons and cord for embellishment.

Just Buggin, For Fun, Fussy and Fancy, Paper Cutz, Stamp Something

A little St. Patrick's Day treat and card here done for several challenges.

The Challenges:

• JustBuggin' (http://justbugginchallenges.blogspot.com/search/label/Challenges )-Green for St. Patrick's Day
• Fussy and Fancy(http://fussyandfancychallenge.blogspot.com/ )-Green
• Paper Cutz (http://papercutzchallenge.blogspot.com/ )-Anything goes
• Stamp Something (http://stampchallenges.blogspot.com/ )-Cream and Green

My card is a cut from Cricut's A Child's Year cartridge. I used green and cream cardstock and my DP is DCWV Nana's Kitchen stack. The hat is also cut from A Child's Year. The stamp is Studio G from JoAnn's $1 bin. I used Colorbox chalk ink in green to stamp. We will be having company for dinner on St. Patrick's Day and serving, what else, corned beef and cabbage. The card and treats will go to our dinner guests.

2 Sketches 4 You 3/8 Sketch

I haven't posted a card in awhile. My husband has recuperated from last month's surgery enough for us to finally get out of the house and do some things, so we have been spending some quality time together. As a result, I haven't spent much time in the craft room, but have really enjoyed time with my husband. Today he took me to Archiver's for some supplies. He's such a good guy dragging me hither and yon since I can't drive due to my vision issues. So I had a great time scooping up a few new papers and embellishments. I thought I would get some cards done when we got home but he wanted to build a fire in the fireplace and play a game, so we did that instead. After a couple hours of games I told him I really needed to spend a little time getting some posts up. I used this week's 2 Sketches 4 You sketch for this card. My base card is kraft cardstock, my DP is My Mind's Eye. I used my Moroccan Screen Cuttlebug folder to emboss the strip behind the doily. I distressed the doily using green and brown chalk ink and added a happy birthday stamp from Inkadinkado and embellished with a few buttons.

CCC #16 Spring card

This Springtime card is cut from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge using the card feature. I have had this cartridge for a really long time and until recently never used the card feature. This is the way to go if you need a cute card in a hurry. The cards all feature a cut in the center and a frame to go around it. The really cool thing about the card feature is you can have a square card or by pushing the shift key can have a tall card. I cut this card and the frame at 4 1/4". I also cut the word Spring from this cartridge at 1 1/4". I added a little doodling with my Sakura 3-D Glaze pens and some ribbon and this card was done in less than 10 minutes. Now, I have to admit, I prefer to spend a little more time and add a lot more detail. But there are times when you just don't have a lot of time to spend and it's nice to know that you can still give someone a cute homemade card on the spur of the moment or when family matters keep you from being able to spend more time on a creation. I have been trying to take the time to investigate some of my cartridges a little more and I'm glad that I discovered the card feature on Stretch Your Imagination.

BBTB2 A Child's Year Garden 2

Our wonderful designer Shelly picked the Garden 2 cut for our BBTB2 challenge this week. This must be her attempt to make us all think a little harder about Spring. It got me to the store to look for a packet of flower seeds and that's when I finally thought maybe this winter would soon be over. Technically, we have only 13 days until the first day of Spring. My husband checked the weather on his computer this morning and yelled from his room that it was supposed to be in the 50s for the next six days. How great is that? Pretty great when you live in Michigan. For the last four days I have been listening to some returning birds singing outside my craft room window. The morning doves have returned, that means the robin's are not far behind. That is when I really feel like Spring has come. That first robin I see is always a big deal to me. I wanted to do something a little different than a card so I made this envelope to hold a seed packet using the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge. I also used the Mini Monograms cartridge to cut the scalloped circle that I attached to the seed packet. The Plant Happiness circle was cut from a piece of Designer Paper from Creative Imaginations.

I really didn't want to do the normal or expected silhouette cut and wanted to do something different. So I went with paper piecing. That meant cutting this out of many different papers but since I have an abundance of scraps overflowing in heaps, I thought it would be a good opportunity to use some of them. My background paper is DCWV green stack. My tag packet 2 is on page 113 of the Tags, Bags, Boxes and more booklet and I cut it at 6". My scalloped circle from the Mini Monograms cartridge is cut at 4 inches from kraft cardstock.

I added some Stickles to sparkle up the flowers. Don't those tulips look so Springy? I sprinkled a few punched butterflies around. The bird is part of the paper but I used a little Stickle dot on his eye and some Sakura 3-D Glaze ink around the birds wing. The flower is Prima and I added a little jute ribbon to the packet. I've decided to make a few more of these little seed packets up to give to friends and family to help them think Spring, too.

Blog Candy winner

Happy Sunday everyone. Just taking care of a little bit of business. I'd like to announce the winner of my blog candy from last week's BBTB2 Blog Hop.

The lucky winner chosen by random.org is #17....

Mindy Nolan

Mindy said...Love your card and most importantly the sentiment.

Thanks for the chance to win :)

Thanks for signing up to follow my blog, Mindy. If you could email me at:

thomasjeri55@yahoo.com with your address I'll get your prize mailed out to you.

Card Patterns, Copic Colour Challenge

It's Card Patterns one year anniversary and they've been celebrating with a blog hop. This card is made for their challenge this week using their anniversary sketch. I also will enter this card in the Copic Colour Challenge this week. Their colors for this week's challenge are BG15 Light Aqua, B93 Light Crockery Blue, and Y21 Buttercup Yellow. I don't always have the colors for their challenge but was lucky this week and had all three. My image is from Whimsie Doodles and was a freebie offered last week. I thought it was just the perfect digistamp to go with the Copic colors. My circle sentiment is from an Easter set at The Cutting Cafe. I used a couple Cricut cuts on this card also. The scalloped egg is from the seasonal Easter cartridge and my scalloped square in the background was cut using the Mini Monograms cartridge. The scalloped square sitting in the diamond shape was cut using a Nestie and Heidi Grace paper.

Just buggin', Creative Inspiration

Okay, I so feel like I cheated making this card. The challenge at Just Buggin' is to use any Cricut card feature to make a card. I'm not a fan of making cards with the card feature because it seems like cheating. Literally, this card took less than 10 minutes to make. Cricut does all the work. I used Stretch Your Imagination for this Spring card. My DP is Heidi Grace. I cut the card at 4 1/4" and it cut the card with the word Spring cut out in the center. Then I cut the frame to put around the word. Since I used two sided paper one cut came from each side. I cut the layers for the tulips to add green stems. For embellishment I added a piece of lace and pink polka dot ribbon, a stick pin and a couple pearls to meet the requirements for the challenge at Creative Inspiration.

My inside sentiment is a coordinating Heidi Grace sticker. I'm also entering this in the One Stop Craft Challenge for optimistically pink because I think my sentiment is pretty darn optimistic and it's pink paper, ribbon and stick pin.

CCC Gate Fold

This week's challenge at Cricut Cardz Challenge is to make a gate fold card. You can use any cartridge as part of your card. I used A Child's Year for this cut of a child with an umbrella. I'm trying to think spring. You know, April showers bring May flowers. I know, wishful thinking, it's still winter. My patterned paper is from DCWV Spring Stack. It has clouds and raindrops on it, making it the perfect paper for this umbrella cut. I cut another layer of clouds out of the paper and outlined them with Stickles then placed them with pop dots. I used blue glitter on the raindrops for a little more sparkle. I mounted my image on top of Nestabilities Label that I emboseed on the edge. I left it in the die and sponged the top with Colorbox Chalk ink in powder blue. I had not done this technique before but I like how it left a white edge.

This sentiment is from a set of sentiments that are quotes from children made by Inkadinkado. I thought this was the perfect saying to go with this card. In fact this saying is what gave me the idea for my card design. I don't often design around a sentiment, but it worked in this case. I again cut some of the clouds from the patterned paper to add to the inside of the card.

Card Positioning Systems sketch, Kelly Jo's Stamp Pad, Corrosive Challenge

I absolutely could not get good pictures of this card which is unfortunate, because it is really pretty in person. The sketch at Card Positioning System is a tall card which was perfect for what I wanted to accomplish with this card. When I saw the colors this week at Kelly Jo's Stamp Pad (black, kraft and blue) I knew exactly what paper I was going to use because I've been saving it for this card. Then I found out the challenge at The Corrosive Challenge is for an Asian card also. My image for this card is from the new Asian Cuttlebag pack. When I first saw this particular folder I thought, what in the world am I going to do with this. But then I remembered my Japanese friend that I met through my aunt. I knew I could use it to make a special card for her. I embossed the kraft paper then using an Iridescent Medium and watercolors mixed together I hand painted all the embossing lines. You can't see the irredescent quality in this picture but it is there.

I used my Cricut Pagoda cartridge to cut the Kanji word. This is the symbol for friend. I added a simple ribbon bow with a fancy button in the center that I recycled off an old sweater for embellishment. I know Niecy is just going to love this card. She is so proud of her Japanese heritage and culture and I think she'll be touched by my efforts to honor them, too.

BBTB2 Celebrations Cupcake

It's the last Sunday of the month and that means it's time for another BBTB2 Blog Hop. Not only is it Blog Hop time but we have a great chance for you to win a wonderful prize donated by the super talented ladies at Holidays with the Cricut. They are giving us a Sweethearts cartridge and a pack of SEI (Happy Day) paper to give away. How do you win? By signing up to follow the BBTB2 Blog and leaving a comment. You should have arrived here from the blog of the incredibly talented Enfys. How yummy did her cupcake look? If you just happened upon my site today you will want to start at the beginning of the hop at BBTB2. This week's BBTB2 challenge is to use the cupcake cut from the Celebrations cartridge on page 101 or the cupcake cut from Doodlecharms on page 108 . My patterned paper is from DCWV kitchen stack. My base card is a standard A2 card from white cardstock. I cut my cupcake from Celebrations at 3" from dark brown cardstock and again from green cardstock that I ran through my cuttlebug in the Swiss dot folder. I layered the green with some pop dots. I added a small piece of lace under the frosting and a large pearl "cherry" on top along with a little Stickles around the edge. I used my Sakura 3-D glaze pen to add some white highlights to the bottom chocolate cupcake. I distressed the edges of the green background paper and did a little sanding to make the white dots more noticable. Then I added some zigzag stitching for a little interest.

My circle sentiment is from the All About Cupcakes set at The Cutting Cafe. I tell you, Regina has a sentiment for just about anything and I love them. I use her digi stamps on almost every card I make. I colored the little cupcake in the middle with Copics and added a little green glitter to the frosting. I placed it atop a scalloped circle I cut with the Mini Monograms cartridge. A little ribbon around the flower patterned paper to finish the card off. Now you should be off to visit Donna's blog to finish off the hop. Wait until you see her gorgeous cupcake creation. You'll love it. Please remember to leave a comment and sign up to follow my blog to be eligible for your chance to win this set of Easter note cards and envelopes which store inside the cute little pink purse cut from the Forever Young cartridge.

Thanks for visiting and have a very wonderful and creative week. Don't forget to sign up to follow and comment on the BBTB2 site for your chance to win that wonderful cartridge and paper prize pack .